Emily
by Kylia Skydancer
Summary: Sometimes love takes the long way around. Takes place immediately prior the turbo movie.


Disclaimer: I don't own them. Saban does.

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Jason always knew Emily wouldn't last. He wasn't sure what had brought the relationship on. Maybe he had just wanted something nice and normal, for once. No monster attacks. (Although, of course, there were still monster attacks. He just wasn't the one fighting anymore.) No teleporting at odd hours. Just a nice normal relationship with a nice normal girl.

Although, come to think of it, Emily wasn't exactly normal, in many ways. The first time he'd met her, she had fallen into some bad company and trashed Ernie's new place. That alone had been enough to put her in the bad list, no matter what he said about her redeeming herself. Still, she had repented of what she had done and had become one of Ernie's best servers. Ernie trusted her. That spoke for a lot. And everyone could make mistakes. Jason had forgiven his best friend trying to kill him when Tommy had been under a spell, all those years ago. He could forgive a misguided girl now.

He had never pictured falling for her though. Yet, somehow, he had. It was in the way she smiled at him when she served their table. It was in her witty remarks. It was in her beauty. Jason had entered into a relationship with her with some trepidation. He still remembered certain dates of Zack's where everything had become ruined when he'd had to disappear because a monster attacked. It was why most of them didn't get to close to people who weren't rangers. There were too many questions, too many accusations, when they would have to suddenly run out on people. The rangers inevitably ended up missing important appointments and letting people down. There was a lot of apologizing involved.

Still, Emily made it easy. He told her that sometimes he needed to disappear and be on his own and she accepted that for the most part. Oh, there was the occasional time or two that she got irritated but her irritation didn't last long. She accepted that the vague excuses and random disappearances were part and parcel of dating Jason Lee Scott.

As time went on, he found himself falling more and more in love in her. When he lost his Gold powers, he was almost grateful because he had felt like it was standing as a barrier between him and Emily. He was grateful not to have to lie to her anymore. They could finally be the kind of couple he wanted them to be. He could be someone she could count on to always be there. And for a while it was good.

And then the phone call came. Trini, with more panic in her voice than he had heard from her in a very long time. He dropped everything and rushed to Florida, to her and his little sister Kim. As they took care of Kim, Jason realized that the feelings he held for his childhood love, Trini, had never gone away. In this task of looking after their fallen friend, they once again became close. Recognizing what was happening, and not wishing to be unfair to Emily, he admitted his feelings to his girlfriend in one of their phone talks. He had expected her to be angry and bitter. Instead, she was accepting.

Emily had always known, she told him, that he wasn't meant for her to keep. He had only told her a few stories of Trini at the Peace conference but Emily remembered and had somehow understood more than he thought he had said. She told Jason she thought they would make a good couple. She assured Jason she didn't blame him. By the time the phone call was over, Jason realized he had been dumped, although his ex girlfriend had been so gentle about it, he hadn't figured out what was going on at first.

Looking at Trini, he realized it really was all for the best. Jason had always known he and Trini were made for each other. Trini knew all of him. His strengths and his faults. She knew the secrets he kept deep down in his head. She knew him better than he knew himself. And she needed him. The first step to getting Kim back to normal, he decided, and she agreed, was to get her back in touch with her friends in Angel Grove. Kim balked at this but a combination of Trini's wheedling and Jason finally just having enough and ordering her to do it caused her to agree to a short visit back home to help with a charity tournament the guys were taking part in.

Giving a last look over all his gear, he started up his car to head to the airport where he was picking Kim up. After some thought, he had finally decided that, instead of plunging her directly into seeing people, he would take his little sister scuba diving first to get her relaxed and used to being back. Happy to put off the moment she would have to face Tommy, she'd agreed and they were heading straight to the beach.


End file.
